Life on Earth May Have Began on Mars

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I actually find the idea that we came from Mars very fascinating because it says a lot about our universe. It also opens up to the idea of life on other planets which I firmly believe is possible.

Damn, the universe is abundant with cool stuff!
 
I actually find the idea that we came from Mars very fascinating because it says a lot about our universe. It also opens up to the idea of life on other planets which I firmly believe is possible.

True, but it might also make the probability of multicellular life significantly tinier. It might be that conditions to create the molecules and the conditions to sustain and nurture those molecules rarely exist on the same planet, and a planetary ejection is the only route toward multicellular life. When you then add in the probability of the planetary ejection landing on a suitable surrogate planet, the likelihood seems miniscule. A bit of a humbling thought.

Damn, the universe is abundant with cool stuff!

Indeed it is!
 
Very large reach of a statement and this article does no justice to the claim whatsoever. I'd love to actually read the paper. Better life forming conditions might be true and Martian chips surely occur, but to make such a claim there needs to be really really strong evidence, and that article just doesn't do it quite so well.
 
Well, it's a one page blurb on a general news website. They certainly can't be expected to go in depth; BBC isn't exactly a scientific journal. I'm sure you can find a more in depth explanation online. I'm not sure they're doing anything but speculating at this point anyway. It's an interesting thought, regardless.


What do you mean Martian chips?
 
Well, it's a one page blurb on a general news website. They certainly can't be expected to go in depth; BBC isn't exactly a scientific journal. I'm sure you can find a more in depth explanation online. I'm not sure they're doing anything but speculating at this point anyway. It's an interesting thought, regardless.

What do you mean Martian chips?

Martian chips meaning fragments of Mars from collisions Martian meteorites.

And what I'm saying is that the article has flat out left the fact that ties the two correlations together. Cops give speeding tickets. Some cops are dirty cops. Cops who give speeding tickets are dirty cops. I can't make that conclusion until I've seen some dependent evidence.
 
Pretty cool idea! I'd love to read that paper, I read an excerpt on the science page at uni and it was rather interesting.
 
Martian chips meaning fragments of Mars from collisions Martian meteorites.

Oh, ok. I'd never heard them called that before. I actually own a piece (very small piece) of a Martian meteorite. (NWA998 if that means anything to you...not sure how interested in them you are)

And what I'm saying is that the article has flat out left the fact that ties the two correlations together. Cops give speeding tickets. Some cops are dirty cops. Cops who give speeding tickets are dirty cops. I can't make that conclusion until I've seen some dependent evidence.

well, not quite. Yours is a non sequitor. What is being proposed here is a plausible explanation, it's just not the only explanation
 
Oh, ok. I'd never heard them called that before. I actually own a piece (very small piece) of a Martian meteorite. (NWA998 if that means anything to you...not sure how interested in them you are)

well, not quite. Yours is a non sequitor. What is being proposed here is a plausible explanation, it's just not the only explanation

I'm not disqualifying the work, I'm just saying the summary doesn't do the work justice if it is a legitimate claim. I'm not sure what the summary is getting at. What I'm saying is evidence supporting such a claim would have to be on recovered Martian meteorites, and unless I read it wrong it really didn't suggest that. (I very well could've read right over that though, I'm on mobile)

What kind of meteorite is it? The designation doesn't mean much to me (that's reference to the recovery point right?) but I'm assuming some form of achondrite. I'm novice with my meteorites, but two weeks into my ACM course so in four months ill be an expert on all things meteorite :)
 
I'm not disqualifying the work, I'm just saying the summary doesn't do the work justice if it is a legitimate claim. I'm not sure what the summary is getting at. What I'm saying is evidence supporting such a claim would have to be on recovered Martian meteorites, and unless I read it wrong it really didn't suggest that. (I very well could've read right over that though, I'm on mobile)

ya, evidence of fossilized remains would be the jackpot. Unfortunately I'm not sure they'd ever find mineralized evidence of such primitive life in Earth rock, never mind on Mars or in a Martian meteorite. Even soft bodied multicellular life doesn't readily fossilize.


What kind of meteorite is it? The designation doesn't mean much to me (that's reference to the recovery point right?) but I'm assuming some form of achondrite. I'm novice with my meteorites, but two weeks into my ACM course so in four months ill be an expert on all things meteorite :)

It's a nakhlite; an igneous rock meteorite. You are correct; nwa = North West Africa
 
Well that's my point. Unless the paper outlines something like... certain chemical levels on Martian meteorites that are otherwise absent on early Earth which are responsible for the formation of life, the facts seem to be entirely parallel and aren't crossing over. We know Martian meteorites exist and we know Mars once could've been a breeding ground for life but we don't know that the two ever game together. It's fair to investigate it, but it's not okay to claim it unless evidence on a collected sample says so.

If it's igneous material, it's an achondrite. A Nakhlite is probably a group of achondrites native to Mars (there's a ton of types, of which I'm only familiar with the Vesta family of Howardites, Eucrites, and Diogenites). Achondrites have undergone heating, so they lose their chondrules. If it's from Mars, Mars was condensed and heated.

Come to think of it, the word Nakhla is Arabic for Palm Tree, I think. Common shisha tobacco brand. I'm assuming they're Egyptian in discovery. but NWA is northwest... I'm going on a tangent.
 
ya, evidence of fossilized remains would be the jackpot. Unfortunately I'm not sure they'd ever find mineralized evidence of such primitive life in Earth rock, never mind on Mars or in a Martian meteorite. Even soft bodied multicellular life doesn't readily fossilize.
Can you imagine the shitstorm it would create if they not only find that there was once life on Mars, but that it was also in some way "organized" - its own version of "civilization"...? I know there's no proof - but that would be really cool...

On a side note - I think we will see a colony on Mars within the next 50 years...
 
Well that's my point. Unless the paper outlines something like... certain chemical levels on Martian meteorites that are otherwise absent on early Earth which are responsible for the formation of life, the facts seem to be entirely parallel and aren't crossing over. We know Martian meteorites exist and we know Mars once could've been a breeding ground for life but we don't know that the two ever game together. It's fair to investigate it, but it's not okay to claim it unless evidence on a collected sample says so.

But that's sort of what they've done. There has been a road block in hypothesizing how RNA was able to form on Earth, but when the ancient Martian meteorites were examined, they contained qualities that would overcome the issues on Earth. Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting it's definitive proof... or even strong proof... just that the conditions would have been such to make it plausible.

If it's igneous material, it's an achondrite. A Nakhlite is probably a group of achondrites native to Mars

Yep, as far as I know, they are specific to Mars. I'm far from an expert though. I like to collect all kinds of interesting doodads
 
Can you imagine the shitstorm it would create if they not only find that there was once life on Mars, but that it was also in some way "organized" - its own version of "civilization"...? I know there's no proof - but that would be really cool...

It would be a collective consciousness mind fuck
 
Can you imagine the shitstorm it would create if they not only find that there was once life on Mars, but that it was also in some way "organized" - its own version of "civilization"...? I know there's no proof - but that would be really cool...

On a side note - I think we will see a colony on Mars within the next 50 years...

Pompeii was... shall we say... dug up. Who knows what lies under the surface of Mars ;)
 
Yep, as far as I know, they are specific to Mars. I'm far from an expert though. I like to collect all kinds of interesting doodads

A family of meteorites is native to their parent body. As I mentioned before with the HED clan, all three are different types of meteorites broken from their parent asteroid (Vesta). Different breaks belong to different families. All Nakhlites will be from Mars, just as all Howardites are from Vesta. So say it with more conviction! I did some reading on it, interesting thing to collect. I've actually got two papers to read between now and 3 PM on parent bodies and the origin of meteors from the origin of the solar system. Learning all about how meteorites actually find their way to Earth and stuff.
 
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